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A native of Westmoreland, Tennessee, Bradley learned piano at an early age, and began playing in local nightclubs and roadhouses when he was a teenager. At 20, he got a job at WSM-AMradio, where he worked as an arranger and musician. In 1942, he became the station's musical director, and was also the leader of a sought-after dance band, joined later by vocalists Bob Johnstone and Dottie Dillard, that played well-heeled society parties all over the city. That same year he co-wrote Roy Acuff's hit "Night Train to Memphis". He kept the band up until 1964, although in the intervening decades, his work as a producer would far overshadow his own performing career.[citation needed].

In 1947, Bradley took a position as a music arranger and songwriter at Decca Records. He worked for Paul Cohen on recordings by some of the biggest talents of the day, including Ernest Tubb, Burl Ives, Red Foley and Kitty Wells. Learning from Cohen, he eventually began to produce records on his own. When his mentor left the label in 1958, Bradley became vice president of Decca's Nashville division,[1] and began pioneering what would become the "Nashville sound."

Country music had long been looked on as unsophisticated and folksy, and was largely confined to listeners in the less affluent small towns of the American South and Appalachia. In the late 1950s, Bradley's home base of Nashville was positioning itself to be a center of the recording industry, and not just the traditional home of the Grand Ole Opry. In fact, the Nashville sound began in a Quonset hut attached to a house Bradley owned with his brother Harold at 804 16th Avenue South in Nashville.

Regarding the Nashville sound, Bradley stated, "Now we've cut out the fiddle and steel guitar and added choruses to country music. But it can't stop there. It always has to keep developing to keep fresh."[2]

The singers Bradley produced made unprecedented headway into radio, and artists such as Patsy Cline, Brenda Lee, Loretta Lynn, Lenny Dee, and Conway Twitty became household names nationwide. Pop singers like Buddy Holly[3] and Gene Vincent also recorded with Bradley in his Nashville studio.[4] Bradley often tried to reinvent older country hitmakers; as previously mentioned, he tried to update Moon Mullican's sound and produced one of Moon's best performances "Early Morning Blues" where the blues and the Nashville sound complement each other surprisingly well.[citation needed] Also, he produced Bill Monroe in both bluegrass and decidedly non-bluegrass settings (Monroe's covers of Jimmie Rodgers' "Caroline Sunshine Girl" and Moon Mullican's "Mighty Pretty Waltz", for example, feature a standard country band rather than bluegrass). Many older artists recognized they needed to change as they saw former pure honky tonk singer Jim Reeves blend his own style with the newer styles with great success. However, not everyone was as successful as Reeves or Patsy Cline in these transformations. In addition to his production, Bradley released a handful of instrumentals under his own name, including the minor 1958 hit "Big Guitar." In the late 1950s, Bradley produced a radio and TV series with his brother Harold, Country Style, USA, for distribution to local radio and TV stations as a recruiting tool for the US Army.

Bradley sold The Quonset Hut to Columbia (which today is a division of Sony Music Entertainment) and bought a farm outside of Nashville in 1961, converting a barn into a demo studio. Within a few years, the new "Bradley's Barn" became a legendary recording venue in country music circles[citation needed]. The Beau Brummels paid tribute to the studio, through titling their 1968 album Bradley's Barn. The studio burned to the ground in 1980, but Bradley rebuilt it within a few years in the same location.

In 1997, the Metro Parks Authority in Nashville dedicated a small public park between 16th Avenue South and Division Street to Owen Bradley, where his bronze likeness sits at a bronze piano. Owen Bradley Park is at the northern end of Music Row. Bradley also has a section of roadway named after him where Bradley's Barn once stood in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, on Benders Ferry Road.

Oermann, Robert K. (1998). "Owen Bradley" In The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Paul Kingsbury, Ed. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 50–51.

Richliano, James Adam (2002). "Angels We Have Heard: The Christmas Song Stories." Star Of Bethlehem Books, Chatham, New York. (Includes interviews with Bradley and chapters on Bradley's involvement in the making of "Jingle Bell Rock", "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree", and "A Holly Jolly Christmas").

1.
Westmoreland, Tennessee
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Westmoreland is a town in Sumner County, Tennessee. The population was 2,093 at the 2000 census and 2,206 at the 2010 census, the town name originates from the historic English county Westmorland, now part of Cumbria. Westmoreland is located at 36°33′41″N 86°14′50″W, according to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 3.8 square miles, of which 3.8 square miles is land and 0.04 square miles is water. As of the census of 2000, there were 2,093 people,804 households, the population density was 547.5 people per square mile. There were 874 housing units at a density of 228.6 per square mile. The racial makeup of the town was 98. 85% White,0. 55% African American,0. 24% Native American,0. 05% Asian,0. 05% Pacific Islander,0. 29% from other races, and 0. 48% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0. 13% of the population,27. 1% of all households were made up of individuals and 14. 6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.48 and the family size was 3.01. In the town, the population was out with 25. 3% under the age of 18,8. 3% from 18 to 24,26. 9% from 25 to 44,22. 5% from 45 to 64. The median age was 36 years, for every 100 females there were 80.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 77.4 males, the median income for a household in the town was $28,958, and the median income for a family was $36,944. Males had an income of $25,795 versus $19,366 for females. The per capita income for the town was $13,185, about 8. 7% of families and 13. 2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 13. 7% of those under age 18 and 17. 6% of those age 65 or over

2.
Nashville, Tennessee
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Nashville is the capital of the U. S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in the central part of the state. The city is a center for the music, healthcare, publishing, banking and transportation industries and it is known as a center of the country music industry, earning it the nickname Music City, U. S. A. Since 1963, Nashville has had a consolidated city-county government which includes six municipalities in a two-tier system. Nashville is governed by a mayor, vice-mayor, and 40-member Metropolitan Council, thirty-five of the members are elected from single-member districts, five are elected at-large. Reflecting the citys position in government, Nashville is home to the Tennessee Supreme Courts courthouse for Middle Tennessee. According to 2015 estimates from the U. S. Census Bureau, the balance population, which excludes semi-independent municipalities within Nashville, was 654,610. The 2015 population of the entire 13-county Nashville metropolitan area was 1,830,345, the 2015 population of the Nashville-Davidson–Murfreesboro–Columbia combined statistical area, a larger trade area, was 1,951,644. The town of Nashville was founded by James Robertson, John Donelson, and it was named for Francis Nash, the American Revolutionary War hero. Nashville quickly grew because of its location, accessibility as a port on the Cumberland River, a tributary of the Ohio River. By 1800, the city had 345 residents, including 136 African American slaves and 14 free blacks, in 1806, Nashville was incorporated as a city and became the county seat of Davidson County, Tennessee. In 1843, the city was named the permanent capital of the state of Tennessee, by 1860, when the first rumblings of secession began to be heard across the South, antebellum Nashville was a prosperous city. The citys significance as a port made it a desirable prize as a means of controlling important river. In February 1862, Nashville became the first state capital to fall to Union troops, the state was occupied by Union troops for the duration of the war. Within a few years after the Civil War, the Nashville chapter of the Ku Klux Klan was founded by Confederate veteran John W. Morton, meanwhile, the city had reclaimed its important shipping and trading position and developed a solid manufacturing base. The post–Civil War years of the late 19th century brought new prosperity to Nashville and these healthy economic times left the city with a legacy of grand classical-style buildings, which can still be seen around the downtown area. Circa 1950 the state approved a new city charter that provided for the election of city council members from single-member districts. This change was supported because at-large voting diluted the minority populations political power in the city and they could seldom gain a majority of the population to support a candidate of their choice

3.
Country music
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Country music is a genre of United States popular music that originated in the southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from the genre of United States, such as folk music. Blues modes have been used throughout its recorded history. The term country music is used today to many styles and subgenres. In 2009 country music was the most listened to rush hour radio genre during the evening commute, immigrants to the Southern Appalachian Mountains of North America brought the music and instruments of Europe and Africa along with them for nearly 300 years. Country music was introduced to the world as a Southern phenomenon, Bristol, Tennessee, has been formally recognized by the U. S. Congress as the Birthplace of Country Music, based on the historic Bristol recording sessions of 1927. Since 2014, the city has been home to the Birthplace of Country Music Museum, historians have also noted the influence of the less-known Johnson City sessions of 1928 and 1929, and the Knoxville sessions of 1929 and 1930. Prior to these, pioneer settlers, in the Great Smoky Mountains region, had developed a musical heritage. The first generation emerged in the early 1920s, with Atlantas music scene playing a role in launching countrys earliest recording artists. Okeh Records began issuing hillbilly music records by Fiddlin John Carson as early as 1923, followed by Columbia Records in 1924, many hillbilly musicians, such as Cliff Carlisle, recorded blues songs throughout the 1920s. The most important was the Grand Ole Opry, aired starting in 1925 by WSM in Nashville, during the 1930s and 1940s, cowboy songs, or Western music, which had been recorded since the 1920s, were popularized by films made in Hollywood. Bob Wills was another musician from the Lower Great Plains who had become very popular as the leader of a hot string band. His mix of country and jazz, which started out as dance hall music, Wills was one of the first country musicians known to have added an electric guitar to his band, in 1938. Country musicians began recording boogie in 1939, shortly after it had played at Carnegie Hall. Gospel music remained a component of country music. It became known as honky tonk, and had its roots in Western swing and the music of Mexico. By the early 1950s a blend of Western swing, country boogie, rockabilly was most popular with country fans in the 1950s, and 1956 could be called the year of rockabilly in country music. Beginning in the mid-1950s, and reaching its peak during the early 1960s, the late 1960s in American music produced a unique blend as a result of traditionalist backlash within separate genres

4.
Ernest Tubb
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Ernest Dale Tubb, nicknamed the Texas Troubadour, was an American singer and songwriter and one of the pioneers of country music. His biggest career hit song, Walking the Floor Over You, in 1948, he was the first singer to record a hit version of Blue Christmas, a song more commonly associated with Elvis Presley and his mid-1950s version. Another well-known Tubb hit was Waltz Across Texas, which one of his most requested songs and is often used in dance halls throughout Texas during waltz lessons. Tubb recorded duets with the then up-and-coming Loretta Lynn in the early 1960s, Tubb is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. Tubb was born on a farm near Crisp, in Ellis County. His father was a sharecropper, so Tubb spent his working on farms throughout the state. He was inspired by Jimmie Rodgers and spent his time learning to sing, yodel. At age 19, he took a job as a singer on San Antonio radio station KONO-AM, the pay was low so Tubb also dug ditches for the Works Progress Administration and then clerked at a drug store. In 1939 he moved to San Angelo, Texas and was hired to do a 15-minute afternoon live show on radio station KGKL-AM. He drove a delivery truck in order to support himself during this time. In 1936, Tubb contacted Jimmie Rodgers’s widow to ask for an autographed photo, a friendship developed and she was instrumental in getting Tubb a recording contract with RCA. His first two records were unsuccessful, a tonsillectomy in 1939 affected his singing style so he turned to songwriting. In 1940 he switched to Decca records to try singing again and it sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc in 1965 by the RIAA. Tubb joined the Grand Ole Opry in February 1943 and put together his band, Tubbs first band members were from Gadsden, Alabama. They were, Vernon Toby Reese, Chester Studdard, and Ray Kemo Head and he remained a regular on the radio show for four decades, and hosted his own Midnite Jamboree radio show each Saturday night after the Opry. Tubb headlined the first Grand Ole Opry show presented in Carnegie Hall in New York City in September 1947, Tubb always surrounded himself with some of Nashvilles best musicians. Jimmy Short, his first guitarist in the Troubadours, is credited with the Tubb sound of single-string guitar picking, from about 1943 to 1948, Short featured clean, clear riffs throughout Tubbs songs. Actually a jazz musician, Byrd—no relation to Jerry—remained with Tubb until 1959, another Tubb musician was actually his producer, Owen Bradley

5.
Chet Atkins
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Chester Burton Chet Atkins known as Mr. He was primarily known as a guitarist and he also played the mandolin, fiddle, banjo, and ukulele. Atkins signature picking style was inspired by Merle Travis, other major guitar influences were Django Reinhardt, George Barnes, Les Paul, and, later, Jerry Reed. His distinctive picking style and musicianship brought him admirers inside and outside the country scene, among many honors, Atkins received 14 Grammy Awards and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He also received nine Country Music Association awards for Instrumentalist of the Year and he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, and the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum. Atkins was born on June 20,1924, in Luttrell, Tennessee and his parents divorced when he was six, after which he was raised by his mother. He was the youngest of three boys and a girl and he started out on the ukulele, later moving on to the fiddle, but traded his brother Lowell an old pistol and some chores for a guitar when he was nine. He stated in his 1974 autobiography, We were so poor, forced to relocate to Fortson, Georgia, outside of Columbus, to live with his father because of a critical asthma condition, Atkins was a sensitive youth who made music his obsession. Because of his illness, he was forced to sleep in a chair to breathe comfortably. On those nights, he played his guitar until he fell asleep holding it, while living in Fortson, he attended the historic Mountain Hill School. He returned in the 1990s to play a series of charity concerts to save the school from demolition, Atkins became an accomplished guitarist while he was in high school. He used the restroom in the school to practice, because it gave better acoustics and his first guitar had a nail for a nut and was so bowed that only the first few frets could be used. He later purchased an electric guitar and amp, but he had to travel many miles to find an electrical outlet. Later in life, he gave himself the honorary degree CGP. In 2011, his daughter Merle Atkins Russell bestowed the CGP degree on his longtime sideman Paul Yandell and she then declared no more CGPs would be allowed by the Atkins estate. His half-brother Jim was a successful guitarist who worked with the Les Paul Trio in New York, Atkins did not have a strong style of his own until 1939, when he heard Merle Travis picking over WLW radio. This early influence dramatically shaped his unique playing style, whereas Traviss right hand used his index finger for the melody and thumb for bass notes, Atkins expanded his right-hand style to include picking with his first three fingers, with the thumb on bass. Chet Atkins was a ham radio general class licensee, formerly using the call sign WA4CZD, he obtained the vanity call sign W4CGP in 1998 to include the CGP designation

6.
Bob Ferguson (musician)
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Robert Bruce Bob Ferguson, Sr. was an American country music songwriter and record producer who was instrumental in establishing Nashville, Tennessee as a center of country music. He was also a producer, and Choctaw Indian historian. Ferguson is best known for writing the bestselling songs On the Wings of a Dove, the Carroll County Accident won the Country Music Association Song of the Year in 1969. In 1983 Wings of a Dove was featured in the movie Tender Mercies starring Robert Duvall, in 1987, Broadcast Music Incorporated awarded Ferguson with the million air plays for the Wings of a Dove. The country song Carroll County Accident, recorded by Porter Wagoner, made No.2 on the Billboard country singles chart, the tune was also recorded by Wagoners longtime duet partner Dolly Parton. Ferguson married twice, first to Harvie June Van then to Martha Jean Lewis, Ferguson was born in Willow Springs, Missouri, the third son of John Carl and Mary Willie Boles Ferguson. While in high school, Ferguson was a typesetter at the newspaper, a fire tower lookout for the U. S. Forest Service. After graduating from school in 1945, he entered the U. S. Army. He attained the rank of sergeant and served as a radioman for two winters in Alaska and he tested military equipment under Arctic conditions. He went on to study at Southwest Missouri State University, after discharge from the Army, Ferguson went out West and worked for the U. S. Forest Service as a fire tower lookout and trail crew boss. He also worked as a laborer in the fields and a typesetter for the newspaper in Moses Lake. He led the Boy Scout Troop from that city to the Boy Scout Jamboree at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, Ferguson then entered Washington State College, Pullman, Washington, under the GI Bill and earned a BS in Speech. He specialized in radio and television production, while in college, Ferguson joined a U. S. Marine Reserve unit. He was called to duty during the Korean War, Ferguson served as a Drill Instructor at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego and producer of Marine training motion pictures. From about 1955-1961, Ferguson worked at the Tennessee Game and Fish Commission, headquartered in Nashville, in 1959, Ferguson was to produce for the commission a 39 segment series on hunting, fishing, and wildlife subjects. In 1960, the North American Wildlife Conservation Association named his production The World Outdoors the Best Motion Picture of the Year, the World Outdoors influenced many wildlife television shows, most notably Mutual of Omahas Wild Kingdom series. While working there, Ferguson also started in the music business, in 1958 he wrote his first multi-million seller song On the Wings of a Dove. It was recorded by Ferlin Husky whom Ferguson met in El Cajon and it has since been recorded by many artists and in many languages around the world

7.
Burl Ives
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Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives was an American singer and actor of stage, screen, radio and television. He began as an itinerant singer and banjoist, and launched his own show, The Wayfaring Stranger. In 1942, he appeared in Irving Berlins This Is the Army, in the 1960s, he successfully crossed over into country music, recording hits such as A Little Bitty Tear and Funny Way of Laughing. Ives was born near Hunt City, a town in Jasper County, Illinois, near Newton, Illinois, to Levi Frank Ives. He had six siblings, Audry, Artie, Clarence, Argola, Lillburn and his father was first a farmer and then a contractor for the county and others. One day, Ives was singing in the garden with his mother and he invited his nephew to sing at the old soldiers reunion in Hunt City. The boy performed a rendition of the folk ballad Barbara Allen, from 1927 to 1929, Ives attended Eastern Illinois State Teachers College in Charleston, Illinois, where he played football. During his junior year, he was sitting in English class, listening to a lecture on Beowulf, as he walked out of the door, the professor made a snide remark, and Ives slammed the door behind him, shattering the window in the door. Sixty years later, the school named a building after its most famous dropout, Ives was also involved in Freemasonry from 1927 onward. On July 23,1929, in Richmond, Indiana, Ives made a recording of Behind the Clouds for the Starr Piano Companys Gennett label. In later years, Ives did not recall having made the record, Ives traveled about the U. S. as an itinerant singer during the early 1930s, earning his way by doing odd jobs and playing his banjo. He was jailed in Mona, Utah, for vagrancy and for singing Foggy Dew, around 1931, he began performing on WBOW radio in Terre Haute, Indiana. He also went back to school, attending classes at Indiana State Teachers College, in 1933, Ives also attended the Juilliard School in New York. He made his Broadway debut in 1938 with a role in Rodgers and Hart’s hit musical. In 1937, he met and befriended actor Eddie Albert, the two lived together for a while in Hollywood. In 1940, Ives began his own show, titled The Wayfaring Stranger after one of his ballads. Over the next decade, he popularized several traditional songs, such as Foggy Dew, The Blue Tail Fly. He was also associated with the Almanac Singers, a group which at different times included Woody Guthrie, Will Geer, Millard Lampell

8.
Red Foley
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Clyde Julian Foley, known professionally as Red Foley, was an American singer, musician, and radio and TV personality who made a major contribution to the growth of country music after World War II. For more than two decades, Foley was one of the biggest stars of the genre, selling more than 25 million records and his 1951 hit, Peace in the Valley, was among the first million-selling gospel records. A Grand Ole Opry veteran until his death, Foley also hosted the first popular music series on network television, Ozark Jubilee. Foley was born June 17,1910 on a 24-acre farm in Blue Lick, Kentucky, grew up in nearby Berea, and gained the nickname Red for his hair color. He was born into a family, and by the time he was nine was giving impromptu concerts at his fathers general store, playing French harp, piano, banjo, trombone, harmonica. At 17, he won first prize in a talent show. He graduated from Berea High School, and later worked as an usher and singer at a theater in Covington. In 1930, as a freshman at Georgetown College, Foley was chosen by a talent scout from Chicagos WLS-AM to sing with producer John Lairs Cumberland Ridge Runners and his first single, Life is Good Enough for Me/Lonesome Cowboy, was released in June 1933 on the Melotone label. In 1937 he returned to Kentucky with Lair to help establish the Renfro Valley Barn Dance stage and radio show near Mt. Vernon in 1939, performing everything from ballads to boogie-woogie to blues. In late 1939, Foley became the first country artist to host a radio program, NBCs Avalon Time. He then returned for another stint with National Barn Dance. In 1941, the year he made his first of only two film appearances with Tex Ritter in the Western, The Pioneers, Foley signed a lifetime contract with Decca Records. He also released Old Shep in 1941, a song he wrote with Arthur Willis in 1933 about a dog he owned as a boy, the song, later recorded by many artists including Hank Snow and Elvis Presley, became a country classic. During the session at WSM-AMs Studio B, he recorded Tennessee Saturday Night, Blues in the Heart and he soon became known for such songs as The Death of Floyd Collins and The Sinking of the Titanic. He moved to Nashville in 1946 and was briefly a member of the Browns Ferry Four, recording Jesus Hold My Hand, in April 1946, Foley signed on to emcee and perform on The Prince Albert Show, the segment of the Grand Ole Opry carried on NBC Radio. During the next eight years he established himself as one of the most respected and he acted as master of ceremonies, the straight man for Opry comedians Rod Brasfield and Minnie Pearl, and proved himself a vocalist who could handle all types of material. His popularity was credited with establishing the Opry as Americas top country music radio show, Foley began recording with his backing group, the Cumberland Valley Boys, in 1947. He recorded seven top five hits with the group between 1947 and 1949, including a No.1 single, New Jolie Blonde, and the country boogie anthem Tennessee Saturday Night, a chart-topper in 1948

9.
Kitty Wells
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Ellen Muriel Deason, known professionally as Kitty Wells, was an American pioneering female country music singer. Her Top 10 hits continued until the mid-1960s, inspiring a long list of country singers who came to prominence in the 1960s. In 1976, she was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, in 1991, she became the third country music artist, after Roy Acuff and Hank Williams, and the eighth woman to receive the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Her accomplishments earned her the nickname Queen of Country Music, Wells was born Ellen Muriel Deason on August 30,1919, one of six siblings, to Charles Cary Deason and his wife, Myrtle, in Nashville, Tennessee. She began singing as a child, learning guitar from her father and her father, Charles, and his brother were musicians and her mother, Myrtle, was a gospel singer. As a teenager, she sang with her sisters, who performed under the name the Deason Sisters on a radio station beginning in 1936. At the age of 18 she married Johnnie Wright, a cabinet-maker who aspired to country-music stardom, Wells sang with Wright and his sister Louise Wright, the three toured as Johnnie Right and the Harmony Girls. Soon Wright met Jack Anglin, who married Louise and became part of the band, Wright and Wells performed as a duo, it was at this time she adopted Kitty Wells as her stage name. Johnnie Wright chose the name from a song called Sweet Kitty Wells. When Anglin returned from the Army, he and Wright formed the Johnnie & Jack duo, Wells would tour with the pair, occasionally performing backup vocals. Before Wells rise to stardom with Honky Tonk Angels, Roy Acuff, Acuff advised Wright not to make his wife his shows headliner, because he thought women could not sell country music records. On Louisiana Hayride, she performed with her husbands duo, while these early records gained some notice, promoters still werent keen on promoting female singers, and therefore Wells was dropped from the label in 1950. In 1952, Paul Cohen, an executive at Decca Records, Wells was disenchanted with her career prospects and was considering retirement, but agreed to the session because of the $125 union scale recording payment. I wasnt expecting to make a hit, said Wells later, I just thought it was another song. It Wasnt God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels was a song to Hank Thompsons The Wild Side of Life. Wells single retorted, Its a shame that all the blame is on us women, the records message was controversial at the time, and was banned by many radio stations. NBC, in particular, was troubled by the lyric, It brings back memories of when I was a trustful wife, Wells slight alteration of trustful to trusting lifted the network ban on the song. It was temporarily banned from the Grand Ole Opry, nevertheless, audiences couldn’t get enough of it

10.
Patsy Cline
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Patsy Cline was an American country music singer. Part of the late 1950s/early 1960s Nashville sound, Cline successfully crossed over to pop music and was one of the most influential, successful and she died at the age of 30 in a multiple-fatality crash of the private plane of her manager, Randy Hughes. Cline was known for her tone, emotionally expressive and bold contralto voice. Along with Kitty Wells, she helped pave the way for women as performers in the genre. Books, movies, documentaries, articles and stage plays document her life, millions of her records have sold since her death. She won awards and accolades, causing many to view her as an icon at the level of Jim Reeves, Johnny Cash, in 1973, ten years after her death, she became the first female solo artist inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. In 1999, she was voted number 11 on VH1s special, The 100 Greatest Women in Rock and Roll, by members, according to her 1973 Country Music Hall of Fame plaque, Her heritage of timeless recordings is testimony to her artistic capacity. She was born Virginia Patterson Hensley on September 8,1932, in Winchester, Virginia and she was the eldest child of seamstress Hilda Virginia and blacksmith Samuel Lawrence Hensley. She soon had a brother and sister, Samuel Jr. They were known in the family as Ginny, John, the family moved often before finally settling in Winchester, Virginia, when Patsy was eight. Sam Hensley deserted his family in 1947, but the home was reportedly happy nonetheless. Cline was introduced to music at an age, singing in church with her mother. She liked stars such as Kay Starr, Jo Stafford, Hank Williams, Judy Garland, self-taught, she could not read music. When Patsy was thirteen, she was hospitalized with a throat infection, the fever affected my throat and when I recovered I had this booming voice like Kate Smith. After watching performers through the window at the radio station, she asked WINC disc jockey. Her performance in 1947 was well received, and she was asked back and this led to appearances at local nightclubs, wearing fringed Western outfits her mother made from Patsys designs. Cline performed in variety and talent shows in the Winchester and Tri-State areas, along with this and increasing local radio appearances on local radio, she gained a large following. In 1954 Jimmy Dean, already a young star, heard of her

11.
Brenda Lee
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Brenda Lee is an American performer and the top-charting solo female vocalist of the 1960s. She sang rockabilly, pop and country music, and had 47 US chart hits during the 1960s, and is ranked fourth in that decade surpassed only by Elvis Presley, the Beatles and Ray Charles. She is perhaps best known in the United States for her 1960 hit Im Sorry, and 1958s Rockin Around the Christmas Tree and she is a member of the Rock and Roll, Country Music and Rockabilly Halls of Fame. She is also a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, Brenda currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee. Brenda Lee was born Brenda Mae Tarpley on December 11,1944, to parents Annie Grace, Lee was born in the charity ward of Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. She weighed 4 pounds 11 ounces at birth, Lee attended grade schools wherever her father found work, primarily between Atlanta and Augusta. Her family was poor, often living hand-to-mouth, as a child, she shared a bed with her brother and sister in a series of three-room houses without running water. Life centered around her parents finding work, their family, and the Baptist church, Lees father was a farmers son in Georgias red-clay belt. Standing 5 ft 7 inches, he was an excellent left-handed pitcher and her mother came from an under-educated working class family in Greene County, Georgia. Though her family did not have indoor plumbing until after her fathers death, by the time she was two, she could whistle the melody of songs she heard on the radio. Both her mother and sister remembered taking her repeatedly to a candy store before she turned three, one of them would stand her on the counter and she would earn candy or coins for singing. Lees voice, pretty face and stage presence won her wider attention from the time she was five years old, at age six, she won a local singing contest sponsored by local elementary schools. The reward was an appearance on an Atlanta radio show, Starmakers Revue. Her father died in 1953, and by the time she turned ten, she was the breadwinner of her family through singing at events and on local radio. In 1955, Grayce Tarpley was remarried to Buell Jay Rainwater, who moved the family to Cincinnati, Ohio, Lee performed with Skinner at the record shop on two Saturday programs broadcast over Newport, Kentucky radio station WNOP. The family soon returned to Georgia, however, this time to Augusta, an Augusta disc jockey persuaded Foley to hear her sing before the show. Foley was as transfixed as everyone else who heard the voice coming from the tiny girl and immediately agreed to let her perform Jambalaya on stage that night. Foley later recounted the moments following her introduction, The audience erupted in applause, on March 31,1955, the 10-year-old made her network debut on Ozark Jubilee in Springfield, Missouri

12.
Loretta Lynn
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Loretta Lynn is an American country music singer-songwriter with multiple gold albums over a career of almost 60 years. She is the most awarded female recording artist and the only female ACM Artist of the Decade. Lynn is the second of eight born to Clara Marie Clary and Melvin Theodore Ted Webb. In January 1948, 15-year-old Loretta married Oliver Doolittle Lynn and their life together inspired the music she wrote. In 1953 Doolittle bought her a $17 Harmony guitar and she often appeared at Bills Tavern in Blaine, Washington, and the Delta Grange Hall in Custer, Washington, with the Pen Brothers band and the Westerneers. She cut her first record, Im a Honky Tonk Girl and she became a part of the country music scene in Nashville in the 1960s. In 1967 she had the first of 16 number-one hits and her later hits include Dont Come Home A Drinkin, You Aint Woman Enough, Fist City, and Coal Miners Daughter. Lynn focused on womens issues with themes about philandering husbands and persistent mistresses. Country music radio stations refused to play her music, banning nine of her songs. She and contemporaries like Tammy Wynette provided a template for artists in country music to follow. Her best-selling 1976 autobiography, Coal Miners Daughter, was made into an Academy Award–winning film of the title in 1980, starring Sissy Spacek. Her album Van Lear Rose, released in 2004, was produced by the rock musician Jack White, Lynn and White were nominated for five Grammys. Lynn has received awards in country and American music. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2013, Lynn has been a member of the Grand Ole Opry since joining on September 25,1962, her first appearance on the Grand Ole Opry was on October 15,1960. Lynn has recorded 70 albums, including 54 studio albums,15 compilation albums, and one tribute album, Lynn was born and raised in Butcher Hollow, Van Lear, Kentucky, a mining community near Paintsville. Her mother was of Scots-Irish and Cherokee ancestry, Loretta was the second of eight children. She was named after the film star Loretta Young, Ted Webb never got to see his daughter become famous, as he died in 1959 of coalworkers pneumoconiosis before Lorettas first single, Im A Honky Tonk Girl, was released. Besides her famous siblings and children who perform, she is related to the country singer Patty Loveless on her mothers side and she is also related, on her mothers side, to Venus Ramey, Miss America of 1944

13.
Conway Twitty
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Conway Twitty was an American country music singer. He also had success in the rock and roll, rock, R&B, from 1971 to 1976, Twitty received a string of Country Music Association awards for duets with Loretta Lynn. Although never a member of the Grand Ole Opry, he was inducted into both the Country Music and Rockabilly Halls of Fame, Conway Twitty was born Harold Lloyd Jenkins on September 1,1933 in Friars Point in Coahoma County in northwestern Mississippi. The Jenkins family were of Welsh descent and he was named by his great-uncle, after his favorite silent movie actor, Harold Lloyd. The Jenkins family moved to Helena, Arkansas, when Jenkins was ten years old, in Helena, Jenkins formed his first singing group, the Phillips County Ramblers. Two years later, Jenkins had his own radio show every Saturday morning. He also played baseball, his second passion and he received an offer to play with the Philadelphia Phillies after high school, but he was drafted into the United States Army. He served in the Far East and organized a group called The Cimmerons to entertain fellow GIs, wayne Hause, a neighbor, suggested that Jenkins could make it in the music industry. Soon after hearing Elvis Presleys song Mystery Train, Jenkins began writing rock and he went to the Sun Studios in Memphis, Tennessee, and worked with Sam Phillips, the owner and founder, to get the right sound. Accounts vary of how Harold Jenkins acquired his name of Conway Twitty. Allegedly, in 1957, Jenkins decided that his name was not memorable enough. In The Billboard Book of Number One Hits Fred Bronson states that the singer was looking at a map when he spotted Conway, Arkansas, and Twitty, Texas. Another account says that Jenkins met a Richmond, Virginia, man named W. Conway Twitty Jr. through Jenkins manager in a New York City restaurant, the manager served in the US Army with the real Conway Twitty. Later, the suggested to Jenkins that he take the name as his stage name because it had a ring to it. In the mid-1960s, W. Conway Twitty subsequently recorded the song Whats in a Name but Trouble and it sold over four million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA. That same year, country singer Tabby West of ABC-TVs Ozark Jubilee heard Twitty, when Its Only Make Believe was first released, because of voice similarities, many listeners assumed that the song was actually recorded by Elvis Presley, using Conway Twitty as a pseudonym. Twitty would go on to rock and roll success with songs including Danny Boy. Lonely Blue Boy, originally titled Danny, was recorded by Presley for the film King Creole but was not used in the soundtrack and this song led to him naming his band the Lonely Blue Boys, although they subsequently became the Twitty Birds

14.
Record producer
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A record producer or music producer oversees and manages the sound recording and production of a band or performers music, which may range from recording one song to recording a lengthy concept album. A producer has many roles during the recording process, the roles of a producer vary. The producer may perform these roles himself, or help select the engineer, the producer may also pay session musicians and engineers and ensure that the entire project is completed within the record companies budget. A record producer or music producer has a broad role in overseeing and managing the recording. Producers also often take on an entrepreneurial role, with responsibility for the budget, schedules, contracts. In the 2010s, the industry has two kinds of producers with different roles, executive producer and music producer. Executive producers oversee project finances while music producers oversee the process of recording songs or albums. In most cases the producer is also a competent arranger, composer. The producer will also liaise with the engineer who concentrates on the technical aspects of recording. Noted producer Phil Ek described his role as the person who creatively guides or directs the process of making a record, indeed, in Bollywood music, the designation actually is music director. The music producers job is to create, shape, and mold a piece of music, at the beginning of record industry, producer role was technically limited to record, in one shot, artists performing live. The role of producers changed progressively over the 1950s and 1960s due to technological developments, the development of multitrack recording caused a major change in the recording process. Before multitracking, all the elements of a song had to be performed simultaneously, all of these singers and musicians had to be assembled in a large studio and the performance had to be recorded. As well, for a song that used 20 instruments, it was no longer necessary to get all the players in the studio at the same time. Examples include the rock sound effects of the 1960s, e. g. playing back the sound of recorded instruments backwards or clanging the tape to produce unique sound effects. These new instruments were electric or electronic, and thus they used instrument amplifiers, new technologies like multitracking changed the goal of recording, A producer could blend together multiple takes and edit together different sections to create the desired sound. For example, in jazz fusion Bandleader-composer Miles Davis album Bitches Brew, producers like Phil Spector and George Martin were soon creating recordings that were, in practical terms, almost impossible to realise in live performance. Producers became creative figures in the studio, other examples of such engineers includes Joe Meek, Teo Macero, Brian Wilson, and Biddu

15.
Nashville sound
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It was an attempt to revive country sales, which had been devastated by the rise of rock n roll. They invented the form by replacing elements of the honky tonk style with smooth elements from 1950s pop music, and using slick production. The producers relied on a group of studio musicians known as the Nashville A-Team, whose quick adaptability. The Anita Kerr Quartet was the vocal backing group in the early 1960s. In 1960, Time magazine reported that Nashville had nosed out Hollywood as the second biggest record-producing center. The term Nashville Sound was first mentioned in an article about Jim Reeves in 1958 in the Music Reporter, other observers have identified several recordings that helped establish the early Nashville sound. Country historian Rich Kienzle says that Gone, a Ferlin Husky hit recorded in November 1956, regarding the Nashville sound, the record producer Owen Bradley stated, Now weve cut out the fiddle and steel guitar and added choruses to country music. It always has to keep developing to keep fresh, countrypolitan was aimed straight at mainstream markets and it sold well throughout the later 1960s into the early 1970s. Among the architects of this sound were producers Billy Sherrill and Glenn Sutton, the Bakersfield sound, and later outlaw country, dominated country music among aficionados while countrypolitan reigned on the pop charts. Upon being asked what the Nashville sound was, Chet Atkins would put his hand into his pocket, shake his loose change, and say Thats what it is. By the late 1970s and 1980s, many pop music singers picked up the style and created what is known as country pop. Classic examples of Nashville sound recordings, Four Walls by Jim Reeves Gone by Ferlin Husky A Fallen Star by Jimmy C

16.
Nightclub
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A nightclub is an entertainment venue and bar which serves alcoholic beverages that usually operates late into the night. Another distinction is that whereas many pubs and sports bars aim at a market, nightclubs typically aim at a niche market of music and dancing enthusiasts. The upmarket nature of nightclubs can be seen in the inclusion of VIP areas in some nightclubs, for celebrities, nightclubs are much more likely than pubs or sports bars to use bouncers to screen prospective clubgoers for entry. Some nightclub bouncers do not admit people with ripped jeans or other clothing or gang apparel as part of a dress code. The busiest nights for a nightclub are Friday and Saturday night, most clubs or club nights cater to certain music genres, such as house music or gothic rock. A nightclub may also be called a discothèque, disco, or dance club, from about 1900 to 1920, working class Americans would gather at honky tonks or juke joints to dance to music played on a piano or a jukebox. Webster Hall is credited as the first modern nightclub, being built in 1886 and starting off as a hall, originally functioning as a home for dance. During Prohibition in the United States, nightclubs went underground as illegal speakeasy bars, with Webster Hall staying open, with rumors circulating of Al Capones involvement and police bribery. With the repeal of Prohibition in February 1933, nightclubs were revived, such as New Yorks 21 Club, Copacabana, El Morocco, in Germany, possibly the first discothèque was Scotch-Club. These discothèques were also patronized by anti-Vichy youth called zazous, there were also underground discothèques in Nazi Germany patronized by anti-Nazi youth called the swing kids. In Harlem, Connies Inn and the Cotton Club were popular venues for white audiences, before 1953 and even some years thereafter, most bars and nightclubs used a jukebox or mostly live bands. The Whisky à Gogo set into place the elements of the modern post World War II discothèque-style nightclub. At the end of the 1950s, several of the bars in Soho introduced afternoon dancing. In the early 1960s, Mark Birley opened a members-only discothèque nightclub, Annabels, in Berkeley Square, in 1962, the Peppermint Lounge in New York City became popular and is the place where go-go dancing originated. However, the first rock and roll generation preferred rough and tumble bars and taverns to nightclubs, disco has its roots in the underground club scene. It brought together people from all walks of life and backgrounds and these clubs acted as safe havens for homosexual partygoers to dance in peace and away from public scrutiny. Disco allowed patrons to explore sexuality and push the envelope on the dance floor, disco clubs acted as an escape from such depressing environments and acted as the fantasy marginalized peoples could escape to forget oppression and racism. Disco clubs originally functioned as liberated party spaces and were seen as places of political statement, a smooth mix of long single records to keep people dancing all night long

17.
Roadhouse (facility)
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A roadhouse, stopping house or coaching inn is a commercial establishment typically built on or near a major road or highway that services passing travellers. The words meaning varies slightly by country, in Western Canada the equivalent facility was historically called a stopping house. A local inn or restaurant, the roadhouse or road house commonly serves meals, especially in the evenings, has a bar serving beer or hard liquor and features music, dancing, most roadhouses are located along highways or roads in rural areas or on the outskirts of towns. Early roadhouses provided lodging for travelers but, with the advent of faster means of transport than walking, horseback riding, or horse-drawn carriages, roadhouses have a slightly disreputable image, similar to honky tonks. This type of roadhouse has been portrayed in such as The Wild One, Easy Rider. Remains of a roadhouse can be seen south of Carmacks. In Australia a roadhouse is a station in a rural area. A roadhouse sells fuel and provides maintenance and repairs for cars, roadhouses usually also serve as truck stops, providing space for parking of semi-trailer trucks and buses, as well as catering to travellers in private cars. In remote areas such as the Nullarbor Plain, a roadhouse also offers motel-style accommodation, in Britain, wayside lodgings of this type were called coaching inns. As in other countries, were originally a place along the road for people travelling on foot or by horse to stay at night, however, many coaching inns, especially those in rural counties, have kept their accommodation to become bed & breakfasts or country hotels. With the advent of travel by motor car in the 1920s and 1930s. They were large establishments offering meals, refreshment and accommodation to motorists, the largest pubs boasted facilities such as tennis courts and swimming pools. Their popularity ended with the outbreak of the Second World War when recreational road travel became impossible, post houses were established in major towns and along principal highways. Roadhouse Blues, a song by The Doors Road House, a 1989 movie about a bouncer, rest area Charging station Fast food restaurant Black Rapids Roadhouse, an old Alaskan roadhouse List of public house topics Rikas Landing Roadhouse Service station

18.
WSM-AM
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WSM is a 50, 000-watt AM radio station located in Nashville, Tennessee. It broadcasts a country music format at 650 kHz and is known primarily as the home of The Grand Ole Opry. The stations clear channel signal can reach much of North America and nearby countries and it is one of two clear-channel stations in North America, along with CFZM/740-Toronto, that still primarily broadcast music. Nicknamed The Air Castle of the South, it shares its callsign with WSM-FM, also in Nashville, WSM first signed on in 1925. It is primarily associated with the popularization of music through its weekly Saturday night program, the Grand Ole Opry. In 1932, WSM boosted its power to 50,000 watts, in addition to its vast nighttime coverage area, the station boasts one of the largest daytime coverage areas in the country. It provides at least grade B coverage as far southeast as Chattanooga, as far northwest as Evansville, Indiana, as far west as Jackson, Tennessee and as far south as Huntsville, Alabama. Under the right conditions, it can be heard in all of Tennessee and much of Kentucky. The station traditionally played country music in the hours, when listeners from around the United States would tune in. Before the advent of television, the station broadcast long-form radio programs in addition to music, after television became popular, WSM adopted a MOR music format during the daytime hours, and continued to play country music at night. It was not until about 1979 that WSM adopted the 24-hour country music format of today, WSM is credited with helping shape Nashville into a recording industry capital. Because of WSMs wide reach, musical acts from all across the eastern United States came come to Nashville in the decades of the stations existence. Over time, as acts and recording companies came to Nashville. Disc jockey David Cobb is credited with first referring to Nashville as Music City USA, in 1996, the station was named Radio Station of the Year at the International Bluegrass Music Awards. WSMs unusual diamond-shaped antenna is visible from Interstate 65 just south of Nashville and is one of the areas landmarks and it is located near the I-65 exit 71 interchange with Concord Road. When the 878-foot tower was built in 1932, it was the tallest antenna in North America and its height was reduced to 808 feet in 1939 when it was discovered that the taller tower was causing self-cancellation in the fringe areas of reception of the station. For a period during World War II it was designated to provide transmissions to submarines in the event that ship-to-shore communications were lost and it is now one of the oldest operating broadcast towers in the United States. As a tribute to the stations centrality in country music history, the tower is listed as a National Engineering Landmark and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 15,2011

19.
Radio
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When radio waves strike an electrical conductor, the oscillating fields induce an alternating current in the conductor. The information in the waves can be extracted and transformed back into its original form, Radio systems need a transmitter to modulate some property of the energy produced to impress a signal on it, for example using amplitude modulation or angle modulation. Radio systems also need an antenna to convert electric currents into radio waves, an antenna can be used for both transmitting and receiving. The electrical resonance of tuned circuits in radios allow individual stations to be selected, the electromagnetic wave is intercepted by a tuned receiving antenna. Radio frequencies occupy the range from a 3 kHz to 300 GHz, a radio communication system sends signals by radio. The term radio is derived from the Latin word radius, meaning spoke of a wheel, beam of light, however, this invention would not be widely adopted. The switch to radio in place of wireless took place slowly and unevenly in the English-speaking world, the United States Navy would also play a role. Although its translation of the 1906 Berlin Convention used the terms wireless telegraph and wireless telegram, the term started to become preferred by the general public in the 1920s with the introduction of broadcasting. Radio systems used for communication have the following elements, with more than 100 years of development, each process is implemented by a wide range of methods, specialised for different communications purposes. Each system contains a transmitter, This consists of a source of electrical energy, the transmitter contains a system to modulate some property of the energy produced to impress a signal on it. This modulation might be as simple as turning the energy on and off, or altering more subtle such as amplitude, frequency, phase. Amplitude modulation of a carrier wave works by varying the strength of the signal in proportion to the information being sent. For example, changes in the strength can be used to reflect the sounds to be reproduced by a speaker. It was the used for the first audio radio transmissions. Frequency modulation varies the frequency of the carrier, the instantaneous frequency of the carrier is directly proportional to the instantaneous value of the input signal. FM has the capture effect whereby a receiver only receives the strongest signal, Digital data can be sent by shifting the carriers frequency among a set of discrete values, a technique known as frequency-shift keying. FM is commonly used at Very high frequency radio frequencies for high-fidelity broadcasts of music, analog TV sound is also broadcast using FM. Angle modulation alters the phase of the carrier wave to transmit a signal

20.
Roy Acuff
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Roy Claxton Acuff was an American country music singer, fiddler, and promoter. In 1952 Hank Williams told Ralph Gleason, Hes the biggest singer this music ever knew and you booked him and you didnt worry about crowds. For drawing power in the South, it was Roy Acuff, Acuff began his music career in the 1930s and gained regional fame as the singer and fiddler for his group, the Smoky Mountain Boys. He joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1938, and although his popularity as a musician waned in the late 1940s, he remained one of the Oprys key figures and promoters for nearly four decades. In 1942, Acuff co-founded the first major Nashville-based country music publishing company—Acuff-Rose Music—which signed such artists as Hank Williams, Roy Orbison, in 1962, Acuff became the first living inductee into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Acuff was born on September 15,1903 in Maynardville, Tennessee to Ida and Simon E. Neill Acuff, the Acuffs were a fairly prominent family in Union County. Roys paternal grandfather, Coram Acuff, had been a Tennessee state senator, Roys father was an accomplished fiddler and a Baptist preacher, his mother was proficient on the piano, and during Roys early years the Acuff house was a popular place for local gatherings. At such gatherings, Roy would often amuse people by balancing farm tools on his chin and he also learned to play the harmonica and jaw harp at a young age. In 1919, the Acuff family relocated to Fountain City, a few south of Maynardville. Roy attended Central High School, where he sang in the chapels choir. His primary passion, however, was athletics and he was a three-sport standout at Central and, after graduating in 1925, was offered a scholarship to Carson-Newman University but turned it down. He played with several baseball clubs around Knoxville, worked at odd jobs. In 1929, Acuff tried out for the Knoxville Smokies, a baseball team then affiliated with the New York Giants. A series of collapses in spring training following a sunstroke, however, the effects left him ill for several years, and he suffered a nervous breakdown in 1930. I couldnt stand any sunshine at all, he later recalled, while recovering, Acuff began to hone his fiddle skills, often playing on the familys front porch after the sun went down. His father gave him records of regionally renowned fiddlers, such as Fiddlin John Carson and Gid Tanner. In 1932, Dr. Hauers medicine show, which toured the southern Appalachian region, the purpose of the entertainers was to draw a large crowd to whom Hauer could sell medicines for various ailments. As the medicine show lacked microphones, Acuff learned to sing loud enough to be heard above the din, a skill that would later help him stand out on early radio broadcasts

21.
Songwriter
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A songwriter is an individual who writes the lyrics, melodies and chord progressions for songs, typically for a popular music genre such as rock or country music. A songwriter can also be called a composer, although the term tends to be used mainly for individuals from the classical music genre. The pressure from the industry to produce popular hits means that songwriting is often an activity for which the tasks are distributed between a number of people. For example, a songwriter who excels at writing lyrics might be paired with a songwriter with a gift for creating original melodies, pop songs may be written by group members from the band or by staff writers – songwriters directly employed by music publishers. Some songwriters serve as their own publishers, while others have outside publishers. The old-style apprenticeship approach to learning how to write songs is being supplemented by university degrees and college diplomas, a knowledge of modern music technology, songwriting elements and business skills are necessary requirements to make a songwriting career in the 2010s. Several music colleges offer songwriting diplomas and degrees with music business modules, the legal power to grant these permissions may be bought, sold or transferred. This is governed by international copyright law, song pitching can be done on a songwriters behalf by their publisher or independently using tip sheets like RowFax, the MusicRow publication and SongQuarters. Skills associated with song-writing include entrepreneurism and creativity, songwriters who sign an exclusive songwriting agreement with a publisher are called staff writers. In the Nashville country music scene, there is a staff writer culture where contracted writers work normal 9-to-5 hours at the publishing office and are paid a regular salary. This salary is in effect the writers draw, an advance on future earnings, the publisher owns the copyright of songs written during the term of the agreement for a designated period, after which the songwriter can reclaim the copyright. In an interview with HitQuarters, songwriter Dave Berg extolled the benefits of the set-up, unlike contracted writers, some staff writers operate as employees for their respective publishers. Under the terms of work for hire agreements, the compositions created are fully owned by the publisher. In Nashville, young writers are often encouraged to avoid these types of contracts. Staff writers are common across the industry, but without the more office-like working arrangements favored in Nashville. All the major publishers employ writers under contract, songwriter Allan Eshuijs described his staff writer contract at Universal Music Publishing as a starter deal. His success under the arrangement eventually allowed him to found his own publishing company, so that he could. keep as much as possible, songwriters are also often skilled musicians. In addition to selling their songs and musical concepts for other artists to sing, songwriters need to create a number of elements for a song

22.
Decca Records
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Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U. S. label was established in late 1934 by Lewis along with American Deccas first president Jack Kapp and later American Decca president Milton Rackmil. In 1937, as a result of anticipating Nazi aggression leading to World War II, Lewis sold American Decca, the British label was renowned for its development of recording methods, while the American company developed the concept of cast albums in the musical genre. Both wings are now part of the Universal Music Group, which is owned by Vivendi, the US Decca label was the foundation company that evolved into UMG. The name Decca was coined by Wilfred S. Samuel by merging the word Mecca with the initial D of their logo Dulcet or their trademark Dulcephone, Samuel, a linguist, chose Decca as a brand name as it was easy to pronounce in most languages. The name dates back to a gramophone called the Decca Dulcephone patented in 1914 by musical instrument makers Barnett Samuel. That company was renamed the Decca Gramophone Co. Ltd. Within years, Decca Records Ltd. was the second largest record label in the world, Decca bought the UK branch of Brunswick Records and continued to run it under that name. In the 1950s the American Decca studios were located in the Pythian Temple in New York City, in classical music, Decca had a long way to go from its modest beginnings to catch up with the established HMV and Columbia labels. The pre-war classical repertoire on Decca was not extensive, but was select, heinrich Schlusnus made important pre-war lieder recordings for Decca. John Culshaw, who joined Decca in 1946 in a junior post and he revolutionised recording – of opera, in particular. Hitherto, the practice had been to put microphones in front of the performers, Culshaw was determined to make recordings that would be a theatre of the mind, making the listeners experience at home not second best to being in the opera house, but a wholly different experience. To that end he got the singers to move about in the studio as they would onstage, used sound effects and different acoustics. His skill, coupled with Decca engineering, took Decca into the first flight of recording companies and his pioneering recording of Wagners Der Ring des Nibelungen conducted by Georg Solti was a huge artistic and commercial success. In the wake of Deccas lead, artists such as Herbert von Karajan, Joan Sutherland, however, Culshaw was, strictly speaking, not the first to do this. Far from being a mere rendering of the score, the 3-LP album set used sound effects to recreate the production as if the listener were watching a stage performance of the work. Until 1947, American Decca issued British Decca classical music recordings, afterwards, British Decca took over distribution through its new American subsidiary London Records. American Decca actively re-entered the classical music field in 1950 with distribution deals from Deutsche Grammophon, American Decca began issuing its own classical music recordings in 1956 when Israel Horowitz joined Decca to head its classical music operations

23.
Southern United States
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The Southern United States, commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South, is a region of the United States of America. The South does not fully match the geographic south of the United States, arizona and New Mexico, which are geographically in the southern part of the country, are rarely considered part, while West Virginia, which separated from Virginia in 1863, commonly is. Some scholars have proposed definitions of the South that do not coincide neatly with state boundaries, while the states of Delaware and Maryland, as well as the District of Columbia permitted slavery prior to the start of the Civil War, they remained with the Union. However, the United States Census Bureau puts them in the South, usually, the South is defined as including the southeastern and south-central United States. The region is known for its culture and history, having developed its own customs, musical styles, and cuisines, the Southern ethnic heritage is diverse and includes strong European, African, and some Native American components. Since the late 1960s, black people have many offices in Southern states, especially in the coastal states of Virginia. Historically, the South relied heavily on agriculture, and was rural until after 1945. It has since become more industrialized and urban and has attracted national and international migrants, the American South is now among the fastest-growing areas in the United States. Houston is the largest city in the Southern United States, sociological research indicates that Southern collective identity stems from political, demographic, and cultural distinctiveness from the rest of the United States. The region contains almost all of the Bible Belt, an area of high Protestant church attendance and predominantly conservative, indeed, studies have shown that Southerners are more conservative than non-Southerners in several areas, including religion, morality, international relations and race relations. Apart from its climate, the experience in the South increasingly resembles the rest of the nation. The arrival of millions of Northerners and millions of Hispanics meant the introduction of cultural values, the process has worked both ways, however, with aspects of Southern culture spreading throughout a greater portion of the rest of the United States in a process termed Southernization. The question of how to define the subregions in the South has been the focus of research for nearly a century, as defined by the United States Census Bureau, the Southern region of the United States includes sixteen states. As of 2010, an estimated 114,555,744 people, or thirty-seven percent of all U. S. residents, lived in the South, the nations most populous region. Other terms related to the South include, The Old South, the New South, usually including the South Atlantic States. The Solid South, region largely controlled by the Democratic Party from 1877 to 1964, before that, blacks were elected to national office and many to local office through the 1880s, Populist-Republican coalitions gained victories for Fusionist candidates for governors in the 1890s. Includes at least all the 11 former Confederate States, Southeastern United States, usually including the Carolinas, the Virginias, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. The Deep South, various definitions, usually including Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, occasionally, parts of adjoining states are included

24.
Appalachia
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Appalachia is a cultural region in the Eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York to northern Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia. As of the 2010 United States Census, the region was home to approximately 25 million people, sociological studies in the 1960s and 1970s helped to re-examine and dispel these stereotypes. While endowed with abundant natural resources, Appalachia has long struggled, by 1990, Appalachia had largely joined the economic mainstream, but still lagged behind the rest of the nation in most economic indicators. Since Appalachia lacks definite physiographical or topographical boundaries, there has been disagreement over what exactly the region encompasses. The most commonly used definition of Appalachia is the one initially defined by the Appalachian Regional Commission in 1965. When the Commission was established, counties were added based on economic need, in 1921, John C. Campbell published The Southern Highlander and His Homeland in which he modified Frosts map to include 254 counties in 9 states. A landmark survey of the region in the decade by the United States Department of Agriculture defined the region as consisting of 206 counties in 6 states. In 1984, Karl Raitz and Richard Ulack expanded the ARCs definition to include 445 counties in 13 states, although they removed all counties in Mississippi and added two in New Jersey. The name was altered by the Spanish to Apalachee and used as a name for the tribe. Pánfilo de Narváezs expedition first entered Apalachee territory on June 15,1528, now spelled Appalachian, it is the fourth oldest surviving European place-name in the U. S. After the de Soto expedition in 1540, Spanish cartographers began to apply the name of the tribe to the mountains themselves. The first cartographic appearance of Apalchen is on Diego Gutiérrez map of 1562, le Moyne was also the first European to apply Apalachen specifically to a mountain range as opposed to a village, native tribe, or a southeastern region of North America. The name was not commonly used for the mountain range until the late 19th century. A competing and often more popular name was the Allegheny Mountains, Alleghenies, in the early 19th century, Washington Irving proposed renaming the United States either Appalachia or Alleghania. In northern U. S. dialects, the mountains are pronounced /æpəˈleɪtʃənz/ or /æpəˈleɪʃənz/, the cultural region of Appalachia is pronounced /æpəˈleɪʃə/, also /æpəˈleɪtʃə/, all with a third syllable like lay. In southern U. S. dialects, the mountains are called the /æpəˈlætʃənz/, and this pronunciation is favored in the core region in central and southern parts of the Appalachian range. The occasional use of the sh sound for the ch in the last syllable in northern dialects was popularized by Appalachian Trail organizations in New England in the early 20th century, Native American hunter-gatherers first arrived in what is now Appalachia over 16,000 years ago. The earliest discovered site is the Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Washington County, several other Archaic period archaeological sites have been identified in the region, such as the St. Albans site in West Virginia and the Icehouse Bottom site in Tennessee

25.
Grand Ole Opry
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The Grand Ole Opry is a weekly country-music stage concert in Nashville, Tennessee, which was founded on November 28,1925, by George D. Hay as a one-hour radio barn dance on WSM, currently owned and operated by Opry Entertainment, it is the longest-running radio broadcast in US history, albeit not the longest-running one on a radio network. It attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world and millions of radio, the Oprys current primary slogan is The Show that Made Country Music Famous. Other slogans include Home of American Music and Country’s Most Famous Stage, in the 1930s the show began hiring professionals and expanded to four hours, and WSM, broadcasting by then with 50,000 watts, made the program a Saturday night musical tradition in nearly 30 states. In 1939, it debuted nationally on NBC Radio, the Opry moved to a permanent home, the Ryman Auditorium, in 1943. As it developed in importance, so did the city of Nashville, the Grand Ole Opry holds such significance in Nashville that its name is included on the city/county line signs on all major roadways. The signs read Music City|Metropolitan Nashville Davidson County|Home of the Grand Ole Opry, membership in the Opry remains one of country musics crowning achievements. Such country music legends as Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Marty Robbins, Roy Acuff, since 1974, the show has been broadcast from the Grand Ole Opry House east of downtown Nashville, with an annual three-month winter foray back to the Ryman since 1999. Performances have been televised in addition to the radio programs. The Grand Ole Opry started as the WSM Barn Dance in the new radio studio of the National Life & Accident Insurance Company in downtown Nashville on November 28,1925. On October 18,1925, management began a program featuring Dr. Humphrey Bate, on November 2, WSM hired long-time announcer and program director George D. Hay launched the WSM Barn Dance with 77-year-old fiddler Uncle Jimmy Thompson on November 28,1925, judge Hay, however, liked the Fruit Jar Drinkers and asked them to appear last on each show because he wanted to always close each segment with red hot fiddle playing. They were the band accepted on Barn Dance, with the Crook Brothers being the first. When the Opry began having square dancers on the show, the Fruit Jar Drinkers always played for them, in 1926, Uncle Dave Macon, a Tennessee banjo player who had recorded several songs and toured the vaudeville circuit, became its first real star. The phrase Grand Ole Opry was first uttered on the air on December 10,1927, at the time, Barn Dance followed the NBC Red Networks Music Appreciation Hour, a program of classical music and selections from grand opera presented by classical conductor Walter Damrosch. On that particular night, Damrosch had remarked that there is no place in the classics for realism, in response, Opry presenter George Hay said, Friends, the program which just came to a close was devoted to the classics. Doctor Damrosch told us there is no place in the classics for realism. However, from here on out for the three hours, we will present nothing but realism

26.
Quonset hut
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A Quonset hut /ˈkwɒnsᵻt/ is a lightweight prefabricated structure of corrugated galvanized steel having a semicircular cross-section. Developed in the United States, the design was based on the Nissen hut introduced by the British during World War I, hundreds of thousands were produced during World War II and military surplus was sold to the public. The name comes from their site of first manufacture, Quonset Point, the United States Navy entered into a contract with the George A. Fuller construction company to manufacture them. The first was produced within 60 days of contract award, the original design was a 16 ft ×36 ft structure framed with steel members with an 8 ft radius. The sides were corrugated steel sheets, the two ends were covered with plywood, which had doors and windows. The interior was insulated and had pressed wood lining and a wood floor, the building could be placed on concrete, on pilings, or directly on the ground with a wood floor. The original design used low grade steel, which was replaced by a more rust-resistant version. The United States used an all-spruce Pacific Hut in the Pacific Theater of Operations in World War II, other sizes were developed, including 20 ft ×40 ft and 40 ft ×100 ft warehouse models. The flexible interior space was open, allowing for use as barracks, latrines, offices, medical and dental offices, isolation wards, housing, between 150,000 and 170,000 Quonset huts were manufactured during World War II. After the war, in the United States, the military sold its surplus Quonset huts to the public, many remain standing throughout the United States. Besides those that remain in use as outbuildings, they are seen at military museums. Some are still in use at United States military bases, for example, Camps Red Cloud and Casey near the Korean DMZ. Many were also used around the United States for temporary housing, such as Rodger Young Village in Los Angeles. Columbia Records Studio B in Nashville was also called The Quonset Hut, a number of variations on the Quonset hut design use materials other than corrugated galvanized steel. Daniel House Dymaxion Deployment Unit Iris hut Jamesway hut Iroquois longhouse Nissen hut Penarth History of Quonset Hut from the U. S. Naval History, Quonset Hut, Metal Living for a Modern Age. Shows descriptions and photos of different styles of Quonset hut. Quonset Hut History in Washington State, Washington State Department of Archaeology & Historic Preservation. Quonset Huts at Guampedia, Guams Online Encyclopedia Quonset Hut Quonset Huts, At National Airport, Arlington, Arlington County, VA at the Historic American Buildings Survey

27.
Grady Martin
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Thomas Grady Martin was an American session guitarist in country music and rockabilly. A member of The Nashville A-Team, he played guitar on such as Marty Robbins El Paso, Loretta Lynns Coal Miners Daughter. During a nearly 50-year career, Martin backed such names as Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Johnny Burnette, Don Woody and Arlo Guthrie, Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline and he is a member of the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. Elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame, March 2015 Grady Martin was born on January 17,1929 in Chapel Hill, Tennessee. He grew up on a farm with his oldest sister, Lois, his brothers, June and Bill, and his parents, Claude and Bessey. His mother played the piano and encouraged his musical talent and that same year, he joined Paul Howards Western swing-oriented Arkansas Cotton Pickers as half of Howards twin guitar ensemble with Robert Jabbo Arrington and performed on the Grand Ole Opry. When Howard left, Opry newcomer Little Jimmy Dickens hired several former Cotton Pickers, including Martin and he later joined Big Jeff Bess and the Radio Playboys followed by a stint with the Bailes Brothers Band. By 1950, Martin was a part of the rising Nashville recording scene as a studio guitarist and fiddler, in 1951, he signed with Decca Records with own country-jazz band, Grady Martin and the Slew Foot Five. The band, with Hank Garland, Bob Moore, Tommy Jackson and it was as a session musician starting in the late 1950s that Martin made his greatest mark on country and rockabilly music. As a guitarist with The Nashville A-Team, he provided the guitar on the Marty Robbins hits El Paso and Dont Worry, on Roy Orbisons Oh, Pretty Woman and Lefty Frizzells Saginaw, Michigan. His guitar work was displayed in Johnny Hortons The Battle of New Orleans and Honky Tonk Man. He shaped countless other classics, Brenda Lees Im Sorry and Rockin Around the Christmas Tree, Willie Nelsons On the Road Again, Ray Prices For the Good Times and Jeanne Pruetts Satin Sheets. In the early 1970s, Martin played on records by Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty, worked with Kris Kristofferson. In 1994, deteriorating health forced him to retire, but he produced Nelsons 1995 honky tonk album, the Nashville Entertainment Association gave him its first Master Award in 1983, and he was the 83rd inductee into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. On April 5,2000, he received a Chetty award for significant instrumental achievement at Nashvilles Ryman Auditorium during the Chet Atkins Musician Days festival. Health problems prevented Martin from attending, Nelson, Vince Gill and Marty Stuart presented the award—named after Atkins, Grady Martin was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame in 2007. He was married three times and had three daughters, Alisa, Angie and Julie, and seven sons, Grady Jr. Joe, Tal, Jason, Joshua, Justin and Steve. Martin died from an attack on December 3,2001 in Lewisburg, Tennessee

28.
Hank Garland
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Walter Louis Hank Garland was a Nashville studio musician who performed with Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Patsy Cline, Moon Mullican, Brenda Lee, Roy Orbison, Patti Page and many others. Born in Cowpens, South Carolina, Garland began playing the guitar at the age of six and he appeared on local radio shows at 12 and was discovered at 14 at a South Carolina record store. He moved to Nashville at age 16, staying in Ma Upchurchs boarding house, at age 18, Garland recorded his million-selling hit Sugarfoot Rag. Garland appeared on the Jubilee with Grady Martins band, and on Eddy Arnolds network and syndicated television shows. Garland is perhaps best known for his Nashville studio work with Elvis Presley from 1958 to 1961, I Got Stung, A Fool Such As I, Stuck on You, Little Sister, His Latest Flame, and I Feel So Bad. 1957-58 marked the height of the rockabilly era and he also backed major crossover artists as well. Don Gibsons Sweet Sweet Girl & Dont Tell Me Your Troubles, Patsy Clines Let the Teardrops Fall Ronnie Hawkins Jambalaya, relatively obscure artists such as Jimmy Donley have reached cult status due in no small part to Garlands guitar artistry. Donleys 1960 record My Babys Gone showcases another of Hanks superb riffs and it is believed that Garland was the first to explore the use of the power chord in popular music. In September 1961, he was playing for the soundtrack of Presleys movie and he recovered with the help of his brother Billy Garland, but not sufficiently to return to the studios. It was believed that electroconvulsive therapy, prescribed by his doctors, Garlands brother, Billy, claimed that the crash was actually an attempted murder by someone in the Nashville music scene. Hank Garland was widely respected by his peers and Nashville producers such as Chet Atkins, Don Law, Chet wasnt wrong, said Harold Bradley, an A-Teamer who, after the accident, took over for Garland as the most recorded guitarist in Nashville. I am very humble about my playing because Hank Garland is the standard, youre talking about 40 years of lost innovation that could have come only from him. Garland died on December 27,2004 of an infection in Orange Park, Florida, where he lived with his brother, Billy Garland. Upon his passing, The New York Times described Hank as a studio artist known for musical riffs that could take a recording from humdrum to dazzling, Hank was survived by two daughters, Cheryl Gruendemann and Debra Garland along with four grandsons and great grandchildren. He was proceeded in death by his wife, Evelyn Garland in 1965, the epitaph on Hanks gravestone reads, THE GREATEST GUITAR PLAYER THAT EVER WALKED PLANET EARTH. Hal Leonard Corp.1998 ISBN 0-7935-9210-0 Kienzle, Rich, in The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Word, Ron Obit-Garland, The Associated Press Gould, retrieved from http, //www. gould68. freeserve. co. uk/HankGarlandBio. html A-Team Musicians Official Web site Hank Garland biography and interview Hank Garland | Facebook

29.
RCA Records
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RCA Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, Inc. It is one of SMEs three flagship labels, alongside Columbia Records and Epic Records. The label has released multiple genres of music, including pop, rock, hip hop, R&B, blues, jazz, the companys name is derived from the initials of the labels former parent company, the Radio Corporation of America. It is the second oldest recording company in US history, after sister label Columbia Records, RCAs Canadian unit is Sonys oldest label in Canada. It was one of only two Canadian record companies to survive the Great Depression, kelly, Enrique Iglesias, Foo Fighters, Kings of Leon, Kesha, Miley Cyrus, Giorgio Moroder, Jennifer Hudson, DAngelo, Pink, Tinashe, G-Eazy, Pitbull, Zayn and Wizkid. In 1929, the Radio Corporation of America purchased the Victor Talking Machine Company, then the worlds largest manufacturer of phonographs and phonograph records. The company then became RCA Victor but retained use of the Victor Records name on their labels until the beginning of 1946 when the labels were finally switched over to RCA Victor. With Victor, RCA acquired New World rights to the famous Nipper His Masters Voice trademark, in Shanghai, China, in 1931, RCA Victors British affiliate the Gramophone Company merged with the Columbia Graphophone Company to form EMI. This gave RCA head David Sarnoff a seat on the EMI board, in September 1931, RCA Victor introduced the first 33⅓ rpm records sold to the public, calling them Program Transcriptions. In the depths of the Great Depression, the format was a commercial failure, during the early part of the depression, RCA made a number of attempts to produce a successful cheap label to compete with the dime store labels. The first was the short-lived Timely Tunes label in 1931 sold at Montgomery Ward, in 1932, Bluebird Records was created as a sub-label of RCA Victor. It was originally an 8-inch record with a blue label. In 1933, RCA reintroduced Bluebird and Electradisk as a standard 10-inch label, another cheap label, Sunrise, was produced. The same musical couplings were issued on all three labels and Bluebird Records still survives eight decades after Electradisk and Sunrise were discontinued, RCA also produced records for Montgomery Ward label during the 1930s. Besides manufacturing records for themselves, RCA Victor operated RCA Custom which was the leading record manufacturer for independent record labels, RCA Custom also pressed record compilations for The Readers Digest Association. RCA sold its interest in EMI in 1935, but EMI continued to distribute RCA recordings in the UK, RCA also manufactured and distributed HMV classical recordings on the RCA and HMV labels in North America. During World War II, ties between RCA and its Japanese affiliate JVC were severed, the Japanese record company is today called Victor Entertainment and is still a JVC subsidiary. From 1942 to 1944, RCA Victor was seriously impacted by the American Federation of Musicians recording ban, virtually all union musicians could not make recordings during that period

30.
RCA Studio B
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RCA Studio B is a recording studio in Nashville, Tennessee. Originally known simply as RCA Studios, it became famous in the 1960s for being a part of what many refer to as the Nashville Sound, the National Park Service listed it on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012. Built by Dan Maddox in 1956, it was constructed at the request of Chet Atkins and Steve Sholes to facilitate the needs of RCA Victor Records and other record labels. According to Chet Atkins, the plans for the studio were drawn up on a napkin by Bill Miltenburg, RCAs chief engineer, construction took four months, and the studio was opened at the cost of $37,515. The recording studio is a building with offices occupying the front but the area of the studio. The studio itself measures 42.5 by 27 by 13, in 1960 and 1961 an addition was built to provide office space and rooms for tape mastering and a lacquer mastering lab. A larger studio was built on 17th avenue in 1964 that became known as Studio A, the first chief engineer was Bob Ferris, a man with a prickly personality who managed to make Atkins angry enough to have him moved elsewhere. Bill Porter replaced him at the end of March,1959, Porter considered the studios acoustics problematic, with resonant room modes creating an uneven frequency response. Porter also marked Xes on the floor where he discovered, by careful experimentation, Porter positioned lead vocalists, background vocalists and acoustic guitarists at microphones placed directly over his marks. After these improvements, Don Gibson recorded his album Girls, Guitars, Porter later told an interviewer, Everybody said, God, what a different sound. She noted that the spot where her car impacted the building is still visible, in 1977 the studio was made available to the Country Music Hall of Fame for tours, and in 1992 it was donated to the Country Music Hall of Fame by the late Dan Maddox. Until 2001, it was operated as an attraction when the new home for the Hall of Fame was built in downtown Nashville, now the studio is co-operated by the Country Music Hall of Fame and Belmont Universitys Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business program. Students use the facilities for learning the basic techniques of analog recording. Nashville painter and singer/songwriter, Gil Veda, introduced to the Grand Ole Opry crowd as The Spanish Hank Williams in 1962, was the first Hispanic singer to record at RCA’s Studio B, daily tours of the studio are offered by the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. Following is a list of notable artists who recorded songs at Studio B

31.
Music Row
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Centered on 16th and 17th Avenues South, along with several side streets, Music Row is widely considered the heart of Nashvilles entertainment industry. MusicRow Magazine has been an industry resource reporting on the location for over 30 years. Lacy J. Dalton had a hit song in the 1980s about one of the streets, 16th Avenue, sometimes the words Music Row are used as a metonymous nickname for the country music industry as a whole, just as Madison Avenue often refers to the advertising industry. Historical sites such as RCAs famed Studio B, where hundreds of musicians have recorded, are situated on Music Row. Country music entertainers Roy Acuff and Chet Atkins are memorialized with streets named in their honor in the area, one area of Music Row, along Demonbreun Street, was once littered with down-market tourist attractions and vanity museums of various country music stars. These began to disappear in the late 1990s after the closing of Opryland USA theme park, the strip sat largely vacant for a few years, but has been recently redeveloped with a number of upscale restaurants and bars serving the Downtown and Music Row areas. Flanking the intersection to the west is Owen Bradley Park, a small park dedicated to notable songwriter, performer. Within the park is a statue of Bradley behind a piano. Inside the roundabout is a statue depicting nude dancers. At the other end of Music Row, across Wedgewood Avenue sits the Belmont University campus, Belmont is of particular note because of its Mike Curb College of Entertainment & Music Business, part of Belmont University and a major program in its commercial music performance division

32.
Pop music
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Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form in the United States and United Kingdom during the mid 1950s. The terms popular music and pop music are used interchangeably, although the former describes all music that is popular. Pop and rock were synonymous terms until the late 1960s, when they were used in opposition from each other. Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music. Pop music is eclectic, and often borrows elements from other such as urban, dance, rock, Latin. Identifying factors include generally short to medium-length songs written in a format, as well as the common use of repeated choruses, melodic tunes. David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop music as a body of music which is distinguishable from popular, jazz, according to Pete Seeger, pop music is professional music which draws upon both folk music and fine arts music. Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music, the music charts contain songs from a variety of sources, including classical, jazz, rock, and novelty songs. Pop music, as a genre, is seen as existing and developing separately, pop music continuously evolves along with the terms definition. The term pop song was first recorded as being used in 1926, Hatch and Millward indicate that many events in the history of recording in the 1920s can be seen as the birth of the modern pop music industry, including in country, blues and hillbilly music. The Oxford Dictionary of Music states that while pops earlier meaning meant concerts appealing to a wide audience. Since the late 1950s, however, pop has had the meaning of non-classical mus, usually in the form of songs, performed by such artists as the Beatles. Grove Music Online also states that, in the early 1960s pop music competed terminologically with beat music, while in the USA its coverage overlapped with that of rock and roll. From about 1967, the term was used in opposition to the term rock music. Whereas rock aspired to authenticity and an expansion of the possibilities of music, pop was more commercial, ephemeral. It is not driven by any significant ambition except profit and commercial reward, and, in musical terms, it is essentially conservative. It is, provided from on high rather than being made from below, pop is not a do-it-yourself music but is professionally produced and packaged. The beat and the melodies tend to be simple, with limited harmonic accompaniment, the lyrics of modern pop songs typically focus on simple themes – often love and romantic relationships – although there are notable exceptions

33.
Piano
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The piano is an acoustic, stringed musical instrument invented around the year 1700, in which the strings are struck by hammers. It is played using a keyboard, which is a row of keys that the performer presses down or strikes with the fingers and thumbs of both hands to cause the hammers to strike the strings. The word piano is a form of pianoforte, the Italian term for the early 1700s versions of the instrument. The first fortepianos in the 1700s had a sound and smaller dynamic range. An acoustic piano usually has a wooden case surrounding the soundboard and metal strings. Pressing one or more keys on the keyboard causes a padded hammer to strike the strings. The hammer rebounds from the strings, and the continue to vibrate at their resonant frequency. These vibrations are transmitted through a bridge to a soundboard that amplifies by more efficiently coupling the acoustic energy to the air, when the key is released, a damper stops the strings vibration, ending the sound. Notes can be sustained, even when the keys are released by the fingers and thumbs and this means that the piano can play 88 different pitches, going from the deepest bass range to the highest treble. The black keys are for the accidentals, which are needed to play in all twelve keys, more rarely, some pianos have additional keys. Most notes have three strings, except for the bass that graduates from one to two, the strings are sounded when keys are pressed or struck, and silenced by dampers when the hands are lifted from the keyboard. There are two types of piano, the grand piano and the upright piano. The grand piano is used for Classical solos, chamber music and art song and it is used in jazz. The upright piano, which is compact, is the most popular type, as they are a better size for use in private homes for domestic music-making. During the nineteenth century, music publishers produced many works in arrangements for piano, so that music lovers could play. The piano is widely employed in classical, jazz, traditional and popular music for solo and ensemble performances, accompaniment, with technological advances, amplified electric pianos, electronic pianos, and digital pianos have also been developed. The electric piano became an instrument in the 1960s and 1970s genres of jazz fusion, funk music. The piano was founded on earlier technological innovations in keyboard instruments, pipe organs have been used since Antiquity, and as such, the development of pipe organs enabled instrument builders to learn about creating keyboard mechanisms for sounding pitches

34.
Floyd Cramer
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Floyd Cramer was an American Hall of Fame pianist who was one of the architects of the Nashville sound. He was known for his slip note style, in which an out-of-key note slides into the correct note. Cramer was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, and grew up in the town of Huttig. He taught himself to play the piano, after finishing high school, he returned to Shreveport, where he worked as a pianist for the radio show Louisiana Hayride. In 1953, he cut his first single, Dancin Diane, backed with Little Brown Jug, in 1955 he played dates with an emerging talent who would later figure significantly in his career, Elvis Presley. In 1955 Cramer moved to Nashville, where piano accompaniment in music was growing in popularity. By the next year he was, in his words, in day and it was Cramers piano playing, for instance, on Presleys first RCA Victor single, Heartbreak Hotel. However, Cramer remained strictly a player, a virtual unknown to anyone outside the music industry. Cramer had released records under his own name since the early 1950s and became known following the release of Last Date. The instrumental piece exhibited a new concept in piano playing known as the slip note style. The record went to two on the Billboard Hot 100 pop music chart, sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. The song was out of the number 1 position by Elvis Presleys Are You Lonesome Tonight. Interestingly and perhaps ironically, the session pianist for Elviss recording of that #1 song, of the characteristic slip note style, Cramer commented, The style I use mainly is a whole-tone slur which gives more of a lonesome cowboy sound. You hit a note and slide almost simultaneously to another, the origin of the style is uncertain. Cramer also acknowledged the influence of Mother Maybelle Carters autoharp playing, in 1961, Cramer had a hit with On the Rebound, which went to number 4, and number 1 on the UK Singles Chart. Also in 1961, Cramer had a hit with San Antonio Rose, Cramer also performed with them as a member of the Million Dollar Band. Over the years, he continued to balance work with his own albums. Many of these featured standards or popular hits of the era, from 1965 to 1974 he annually recorded a disc of the years biggest hits, entitled Class of

35.
Honky-tonk
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A honky-tonk is both a bar that provides country music for the entertainment of its patrons and the style of music played in such establishments. Bars of this kind are common in the South and Southwest United States, many eminent country music artists, such as Jimmie Rodgers, Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline, Ernest Tubb, and Merle Haggard, began their careers as amateur musicians in honky-tonks. The modern-day, honk-tonk atmosphere has continued, with likes of Dwight Yoakam, the origin of the term honky-tonk is disputed, originally referring to bawdy variety shows in areas of the old West and to the actual theaters showing them. This honky-tonk music was an important influence on the piano style. Before World War II, the industry began to refer to hillbilly music being played from Texas. In the 1950s, honky-tonk entered its age, with the popularity of Webb Pierce, Hank Locklin, Lefty Frizzell, Ray Price, Faron Young, George Jones. The origin of the term honky-tonk is unknown, the Tonk brothers, William and Max, established the Tonk Bros. An early source purporting to explain the derivation of the term was an article published in 1900 by the New York Sun, the article, however, reads more like a humorous urban legend or fable, so its veracity is questionable. Some honky-tonks offered dancing to music played by pianists or small bands, katrina Hazzard-Gordon wrote that the honky-tonk was the first urban manifestation of the jook, and that the name itself became synonymous with a style of music. Related to the blues in tonal structure, honky-tonk has a tempo that is slightly stepped up. It is rhythmically suited for many African-American dance, as Chris Smith and Charles McCarron wrote in their 1916 hit song Down in Honky Tonk Town, Its underneath the ground, where all the fun is found. Although the derivation of the term is unknown, honky tonk originally referred to bawdy variety shows in the West, the earliest mention of them in print refers to them as variety theaters and describe the entertainment as variety shows. The theaters often had a gambling house and always a bar. In recollections long after the closed, writers such as Wyatt Earp. Abbott referred to honky-tonks in the cowtowns of Kansas, Nebraska and their recollections contain lurid accounts of the women and violence accompanying the shows. As late as 1913, Col. Edwin Emerson, a former Rough Rider commander, the Rough Riders were recruited from the ranches of Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Indian Territories, so the term was still in popular use during the Spanish–American War. The honky-tonk sound has a rhythm section playing a two-beat rhythm with a crisp backbeat. Steel guitar and fiddle are the dominant instruments, honky-tonk music influenced the boogie-woogie piano style, as indicated by Jelly Roll Mortons 1938 record Honky Tonk Music and Meade Lux Lewiss hit Honky Tonk Train Blues

36.
Fiddle
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Fiddle is another name for the bowed string musical instrument more often called a violin. It is also a term for the instrument used by players in all genres. Fiddle playing, or fiddling, refers to various styles of music, Fiddle is also a common term among musicians who play folk music on the violin. The fiddle is part of traditional styles of music which are aural traditions. There are few distinctions between violins and fiddles, though more primitively constructed and smaller violins are more likely to be considered fiddles. In order to produce a tone, compared to the deeper tones of gut or synthetic core strings. Among musical styles, fiddling tends to produce rhythms focused on dancing, with associated quick note changes, whereas classical music tends to contain more vibrato and it is less common for a classically trained violinist to play folk music, but today, many fiddlers have classical training. The medieval fiddle emerged in 10th-century Europe, deriving from the Byzantine lira, lira spread widely westward to Europe, in the 11th and 12th centuries European writers use the terms fiddle and lira interchangeably when referring to bowed instruments. During the Renaissance the gambas were important and elegant instruments, they eventually lost ground to the viola da braccio family. The etymology of fiddle is uncertain, the Germanic fiddle may derive from the same early Romance word as does violin, the name seems however to be related to Icelandic Fiðla and also Old English fiðele. A native Germanic ancestor of fiddle may even be the ancestor of the early Romance form of violin, historically, fiddle also referred to a predecessor of todays violin. Like the violin, it tended to have four strings, another family of instruments that contributed to the development of the modern fiddle are the viols, which are held between the legs and played vertically, and have fretted fingerboards. Violins, on the hand, are commonly grouped in sections. The difference was likely compounded by the different sounds expected of violin music, historically, the majority of fiddle music was dance music, while violin music had either grown out of dance music or was something else entirely. Violin music came to value a smoothness that fiddling, with its dance-driven clear beat, in situations that required greater volume, a fiddler could push their instrument harder than could a violinist. In the very late 20th century, a few artists have attempted a reconstruction of the Scottish tradition of violin and big fiddle. Notable recorded examples include Iain Fraser and Christine Hanson, Amelia Kaminski and Christine Hansons Bonnie Lasses and Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas Fire and Grace. In Hungary, a three stringed viola variant with a bridge, called the kontra or háromhúros brácsa makes up part of a traditional rhythm section in Hungarian folk music

37.
Steel guitar
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Steel guitar is a type of guitar or the method of playing the instrument. The term steel guitar is often used to describe any metal body resophonic guitar. Steel guitar can describe, The slide technique of playing guitar is generally by using a steel bar. Dobro is also a name of one of the leading manufacturers of resonator guitars. A specialized instrument built for playing in steel guitar fashion and these are of several types, Lap steel guitar, which may be, Lap slide guitar, with a conventional wooden guitar box. The square-necked variety of resonator guitar, the technique was invented and popularized in Hawaii. Thus, the lap steel guitar is known as the Hawaiian guitar, particularly in documents from the early 20th century. Steel guitar tunings tend to feature close intervals whereas slack key tunings more often contain 4ths and 5ths, dobro is a brand of resonator guitars, but the word is most often used to describe bluegrass instruments of several different brands. Bottleneck guitar may have developed from Steel guitar technique. The slide is almost never slanted, common bottleneck tunings are open D and E chords. A steel guitar is one designed to be played in steel-guitar fashion, historically, these have been of many types, but two dominate, Resonator guitars, particularly the square-necked variety which can be played only in steel guitar fashion. Electric instruments, starting with electric lap steel guitars and developing through the steel guitar to the pedal steel guitar. The lap steel guitar typically has 6 strings and may have various tunings, originally the standard EBGDAE tuning was changed to allow open i. e. major chord tunings to accommodate using the straight steel bar and not require changing string gauges. Hawaiian tunings evolved from A Major and E Major to E7, C sharp Minor, C sharp Minor 9th, F sharp Minor 9th, B11th and the popular E 13th. Jerry Byrd is credibly the originator of the C6+A7 tuning ECAGEC sharp which allows a wider ranging of chording for Hawaiian and it differs from a conventional or Spanish guitar in having a higher action and often a neck that is square in cross section. The frets, unused in steel style playing, may be replaced by markers, there are three main types, Lap slide guitars, which are acoustic instruments but may have electric pickups for amplification in addition. Resonator guitars, which are acoustic instruments but may have pickups for amplification in addition. Electric lap steel guitars, which are solid body

38.
Lenny Dee
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Leonard George DeStoppelaire, better known as Lenny Dee, was a virtuoso organist who played many styles of music. His record albums were among the most popular of easy listening and his signature hit, Plantation Boogie, charted as a Top 20 hit in 1955. He also had a record with 1970s Spinning Wheel. Dee played a variety of songs in numerous styles and he played original compositions, popular songs, and novelty tunes, and was a master of improvisation. Although his unique style was a blend, he also played ballads, country and western, jazz, rock. Born in Chicago, Illinois in 1923, Dee was an only child, as a child, he sang in his churchs choir, he also played ukulele, banjo and accordion. As a teenager, he turned playing the accordion into a profession in his uncles quartet, upon his return from service, Dee spent his Navy earnings on a Hammond Model A organ, one of the earliest of its kind. Bill, he received instruction in organ at the Chicago Conservatory of Music, afterward, he began playing hotels and night clubs in the south in the late 1940s to some degree of success, but no record contracts. Dee made good, and his composition, Plantation Boogie charted at #18 in 1955. Dee re-recorded the hit on albums, and was often imitated, even plagiarized. Dee wrote Chicken in the Rough, and recorded the song as a duet with saxophonist, the uncanny similarity of Yakety Sax to Dees Chicken in the Rough is often noted. Dee ventured into recording albums for Decca starting in 1954 with his first LP, part of Dees charm was his albums zany covers featuring Dee in various situations, and titles with puns that usually included his name, such as Dee-Lirious, Dee-Licious, and Dee-Most. His recordings featured organ with other instruments that were produced by Owen Bradley and developed into the Nashville sound, Dee played various instruments, and was highly influential in the history of organs and keyboards. Dee was recognized for his contribution to the field of music by Time Life for what Dee described as bringing the out of the church. They had two children, Raymond and Georgia, Lenny Dee Jr. his drummer, was one of three children from his first marriage, daughters are Barbara and Linda. Despite his contract with Decca, Lenny Dees first love was live performance, Dee loved people and he loved to entertain them with music and laughter. Dee was a man and a performer. In the mid-1950s he performed for several summers at the Lake Breeze Hotel lounge, at Buckeye Lake, just east of Columbus, around 1960, he played for a few years at a lounge in Fort Lauderdale, Florida

39.
Buddy Holly
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Buddy Holly was an American musician and singer-songwriter who was a central figure of mid-1950s rock and roll. Holly was born in Lubbock, Texas, to a family during the Great Depression, he learned to play guitar. His style was influenced by music, country music, and rhythm and blues acts. He made his first appearance on television in 1952. In 1955, after opening for Elvis Presley, Holly decided to pursue a career in music and he opened for Presley three times that year, his bands style shifted from country and western to entirely rock and roll. In October that year, when he opened for Bill Haley & His Comets, Holly was spotted by Nashville scout Eddie Crandall, Hollys recording sessions at Decca were produced by Owen Bradley. Petty became the manager and sent the demo to Brunswick Records, which released it as a single credited to The Crickets. In September 1957, as the band toured, Thatll Be the Day topped the US Best Sellers in Stores chart and its success was followed in October by another major hit, Peggy Sue. The album Chirping Crickets, released in November 1957, reached five on the UK Albums Chart. Holly made his appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in January 1958 and soon after, toured Australia. In early 1959, Holly assembled a new band, consisting of country music star Waylon Jennings, famed session musician Tommy Allsup, and Carl Bunch. After a show in Clear Lake, Iowa, Holly chartered an airplane to travel to his show, in Moorhead. Soon after takeoff, the crashed, killing Holly, Ritchie Valens, The Big Bopper. During his short career, Holly wrote, recorded, and produced his own material and he is often regarded as the artist who defined the traditional rock-and-roll lineup of two guitars, bass, and drums. Holly was an influence on later popular music artists, including The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton. He was among the first artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked him number 13 in its list of 100 Greatest Artists. Buddy Holly was born Charles Hardin Holley on September 7,1936, in Lubbock, Texas, at 3,30 pm, he was the child of Lawrence Odell L. O. Holley. His older siblings were Larry, Travis, and Patricia Lou, from early childhood, he was nicknamed Buddy

40.
Gene Vincent
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Vincent Eugene Craddock, known as Gene Vincent, was an American musician who pioneered the styles of rock and roll and rockabilly. His 1956 top ten hit with his Blue Caps, Be-Bop-A-Lula, is considered a significant early example of rockabilly and he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. Craddock was born February 11,1935, in Norfolk, Virginia, to Mary Louise and his musical influences included country, rhythm and blues and gospel music. His favourite composition was Beethovens Egmont overture and he showed his first real interest in music while his family lived in Munden Point, in Princess Anne County, Virginia, near the North Carolina line, where they ran a country store. He received his first guitar at the age of twelve as a gift from a friend, Vincents father volunteered to serve in the U. S. Coast Guard and patrolled American coastal waters to protect Allied shipping against German U-boats during World War II. Vincents mother maintained the store in Munden Point. His parents moved the family to Norfolk, the home of a naval base. Vincent dropped out of school in 1952, at the age of seventeen, as he was under the age of enlistment, his parents signed the forms allowing him to enter the Navy. He completed boot camp and joined the fleet as a crewman aboard the fleet oiler USS Chukawan, with a training period in the repair ship USS Amphion. He never saw combat but completed a Korean War deployment and he sailed home from Korean waters aboard the battleship USS Wisconsin but was not part of the ships company. Craddock planned a career in the Navy and, in 1955, in July 1955, while he was in Norfolk, his left leg was shattered in a motorcycle crash. He refused to allow the leg to be amputated, and the leg was saved and he wore a steel sheath around the leg for the rest of his life. Most accounts relate the accident as the fault of a driver who struck him. Years later in some of his biographies, there is no mention of an accident. He spent time in the Portsmouth Naval Hospital and was discharged from the Navy shortly thereafter. Craddock became involved in the music scene in Norfolk. He changed his name to Gene Vincent and formed a band, Gene Vincent. The band included Willie Williams on rhythm guitar, Jack Neal on upright bass, Dickie Harrell on drums and he also collaborated with another rising musician, Jay Chevalier of Rapides Parish, Louisiana

The piano is an acoustic, stringed musical instrument invented in Italy by Bartolomeo Cristofori around the year 1700 …

Image: Grand piano and upright piano

Grand piano by Louis Bas of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, France, 1781. Earliest French grand piano known to survive; includes an inverted wrestplank and action derived from the work of Bartolomeo Cristofori (ca. 1700) with ornately decorated soundboard.